Brain’s Connective Cells Are Much More Than Glue
Glia cells also regulate learning and memory, new TAU research finds. Glia cells, named for the Greek word for “glue,” hold the brain’s neurons together and protect the cells that determine our thoughts and behaviors, but scientists have long puzzled over their prominence in the activities of the brain dedicated to learning and memory. Now [...]
Scripps Research Scientists Discover a Brain Cell Malfunction in Schizophrenia
The findings could point the way to new therapies. Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have discovered that DNA stays too tightly wound in certain brain cells of schizophrenic subjects. The findings suggest that drugs already in development for other diseases might eventually offer hope as a treatment for schizophrenia and related conditions in the [...]
Elderly Can Be As Fast As Young in Some Brain Tasks
Both children and the elderly have slower response times when they have to make quick decisions in some settings. But recent research suggests that much of that slower response is a conscious choice to emphasize accuracy over speed. In fact, healthy older people can be trained to respond faster in some decision-making tasks without hurting [...]
How Skin is Wired for Touch
Compared to our other senses, scientists don’t know much about how our skin is wired for the sensation of touch. Now, research reported in the December 23rd issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication, provides the first picture of how specialized neurons feel light touches, like a brush of movement or a vibration, [...]
UT Health Researchers Link Multiple Sclerosis to Different Area of Brain
Radiology researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) have found evidence that multiple sclerosis affects an area of the brain that controls cognitive, sensory and motor functioning apart from the disabling damage caused by the disease’s visible lesions. The thalamus of the brain was selected as the benchmark for the [...]
Do You See What I See?
Scientists model brain structure to help computers recognize objects An essential question confronting neuroscientists and computer vision researchers alike is how objects can beidentified by simply “looking” at an image. Introspectively, we know that the human brain solves this problem very well. We only have to look at something to know what it is. But [...]
Listen Up: Abnormality in Auditory Processing Underlies Dyslexia
People with dyslexia often struggle with the ability to accurately decode and identify what they read. Although disrupted processing of speech sounds has been implicated in the underlying pathology of dyslexia, the basis of this disruption and how it interferes with reading comprehension has not been fully explained. Now, new research published by Cell Press [...]
UCLA Neuroscientists Demonstrate Crucial Advances in Brain Reading
Innovative machine learning method anticipates neurocognitive changes, similar to predictive text-entry for cell phones, internet search engines At UCLA’s Laboratory of Integrative Neuroimaging Technology, researchers use functional MRI brain scans to observe brain signal changes that take place during mental activity. They then employ computerized machine learning (ML) methods to study these patterns and identify [...]
A Single Cell Endoscope
Berkeley Lab Researchers Use Nanophotonics for Optical Look Inside Living Cells An endoscope that can provide high-resolution optical images of the interior of a single living cell, or precisely deliver genes, proteins, therapeutic drugs or other cargo without injuring or damaging the cell, has been developed by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s [...]
Human Skull Study Causes Evolutionary Headache
Scientists studying a unique collection of human skulls have shown that changes to the skull shape thought to have occurred independently through separate evolutionary events may have actually precipitated each other. Researchers at the Universities of Manchester and Barcelona examined 390 skulls from the Austrian town of Hallstatt and found evidence that the human skull [...]
